What is right is contested

By his choice of example Julian makes life too easy for himself. Mockery of the weak is an egregious practice of course. But what if someone makes a criticism of Islam – or any religion – in perfectly measured terms and some take offence, perceiving this criticism as mockery? What if the satirical treatment of a sacred figure in a work of fiction arouses anger, pleas for censorship, death threats? What if it is disputed between different parties whether certain images or statements are offensive or not? In such cases, the right to say what you think – within the usual limits concerning incitement to violence and defamation – trumps what any of us might believe is the right way to behave.

That’s the complaint I make about Nussbaum and about other people who claim that we can all agree on certain basic principles: that by their choice of example they make life too easy for themselves. It’s no good using people who don’t want to fight in wars as an example, because that’s easy; you have to pick people who want to murder their daughters for marrying without permission, because that’s not easy. It’s so not easy that it seems to demonstrate that in fact we can’t all agree on certain basic principles. We can all agree that we want justice or peace or an end to violence, but aha aha, it always turns out that other people mean something different by justice or peace or an end to violence from what we meant, and it turns out we can’t agree at all. (If we could, why would Saddam have done what he did for so long? Why would genocides have happened? Why would Jack Abramoff have pocketed so much money for keeping US labour laws out of the Marianas while workers there lived such horrible lives?) It’s tragic that we can’t all agree, but it’s true.

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20 Responses to “What is right is contested”

For sure we don’t all explicitly agree on everything & that is where you have a most excellent point.

That being said I firmly believe we’re all implicitly agreeing – in a mundane way – on a lot of things. I also think there’s good evidence that we can find agreement on a small amount of basics. The issue is not with the people, that can or can’t or do or don’t, the issue lies with mistaken shared convictions, the type of conviction one gets set up to be prepared to die for (or live by) & the fact that they get taboo status.

We have to mock such convictions, when we know they do not allow for a common reasoned argument – mockery is a right instrument for the situation. Respect, R-E-S-P-E-C-T, is futile because it is a sure recipe for being assimilated.

If a doctrine is used to blow stuff up one should mock it – if anything there is one quite basic agreement we have – we don’t like to be blown up.

Excuse me, but the issue is with the people who can’t or won’t; for instance with the people who see nothing wrong with using women like things and killing them if they rebel. That’s an issue.

Yes of course we all agree that we don’t like to be blown up – but we do not all agree that that means we mustn’t blow other people up. Same with being used, same with being forcibly married off, same with being flogged, same with being stoned to death.

Actually, JoB, it seems some people do quite like to be blown up: martyrs who believe they will receive seven virgins upon entering heaven. Quite a pertinent example you provided there.

I suppose the point being made is that “mockery” is such a subjective word that it is hard to define what actually constitutes mockery. Certainly criticism and satire are not the same thing as mockery. I don’t think there has been any “mocking” of muslims in the public discourse, as far as I know. Perhaps those being criticised are using a loaded word like “mock” to deflect criticism.

We: all capable of rational discussion i.e. all except the psychopathic & the sociopathic & the catatonic, …

Things: everyday things, anything that is not bigger than life, anything that is not beyond rational discussion.

Certain false ideas have a clear power over people making them behave as if a robot were remote controlled by popes, or mullahs, or certain politicians. It is even worse if sociopaths, typically found at the head of religious & other absolute-idea-based organizations, can steer the idea in such a way that such a robot army commits their crimes. But that makes those involved guilty of an inhuman life (& some of heinous crimes like blowing up people), not incapable of ever behaving other than a robot. & that’s why I am optimistic that we can come to an agreement if we’re ruthless with the false ideas.

“it seems some people do quite like to be blown up: martyrs who believe they will receive seven virgins upon entering heaven.”

No, most like the seven virgins-bit or more realistically, they like the fact that their families are provided for – or, even more realistically, they find themselves in a situation where stupid actions put them in a cul-de-sac: it’s blowing up or certainty that those you love are being torn by pieces.

Nothing very much different from those well known practices of the mob.

(sure, some will like being a martyr – my hypothesis would be: schizophreny)

In such cases, the right to say what you think – within the usual limits concerning incitement to violence and defamation – trumps what any of us might believe is the right way to behave.

Legally, sure. But morally? Nope. Sure, there will be some gray areas where it is contested whether a satirical portrayal is legitimate criticism or racist mockery. And in that case, we have to have reasoned debates about who’s right. We can’t just dismiss the whole matter by saying “well, freedom of speech.” Freedom of speech governs the state’s actions, not societal approval or disapproval. We can accept someone’s freedom to say something and still think he’s a nasty person for saying it.

The problem isn’t with being unable to agree on principles, it’s with making people see that principles have to apply to Them as well as to Us. When talking about People Like Us, yes, people do agree on the same basic principles. It’s just that people are prone to creating categories of Unpersons in their minds, and women are often in that category. I’m sure honor-killers can easily see that men should be able to marry who they choose. But women aren’t real people, so who needs those principles while dealing with them?

Morally, yes, Jenavir. It’s too easy to silence people with threats of violence. People who resort to violence must be responsible for their own actions. But my freedom or yours to speak our minds. That’s not negotiable, and certainly not over threats of violence. It’s not a matter of creating categories of unpersons either. It’s doing the other person the respect that is their due, that they are human beings, capable of responding in a humanly appropriate way to criticism and to mockery, if that seems to be necessary.

Reasoned debate is not always possible, as the collision between creationism and biology in the US and elsewhere demostrates. In such cases, some well-placed barbs are in order. And if you think what I say is foolish, you’re free to barb away – though I will discuss, if you’d rather.

Well my optimism doesn’t come from the everyday encounters in real life. I am not particularly fond of people ;-)

I don’t think it’s easy to get the bad ideas out of heads – not even out of a good head. It’s hard. I guess that’s a good reason for a site like this.

I do see evidence for optimism though. If you take long enough time spans, it is even evident that things are on the up. Sure – that does not mean anything as to the now or the future (I also do not think that we can make predictions as easily as that).

That’s why my attempt at argument does matter (at least to me). If people are in general capable of seeing that this or that doctrine is bad & if a freedom of discussion is established that does show certain doctrines to be bad, this is enough for my kind of optimism. For me the former is true (the alternative would be very pessimistic indeed), the latter has a high probability of being true as – in the end – it’s impossible to control the environment of ideas in such a way as to shield bad ideas from due criticism (or mockery).

Does this mean Obama will get elected? I hope he does but my optimism isn’t a help for my hope. I’m not utopian, the optimism doesn’t lead to (my) optimal, if there is such a thing at all, state of affairs – it just excludes that the world is going backwards. Only the fit ideas wil survive & bad ideas might be temporarily successful but will in the long run be exposed for their sickness in the truth department.

But it isn’t evident that things are on the up, even with a long enough time span. Advances in technology mean that bad ideas are now lethal on a scale that was impossible earlier in that long enough time span. And what evidence is there that bad ideas will in the long run be exposed for their sickness? I would love to think that’s true but in fact I think it’s just a deeply entrenched illusion.

Anyway I don’t believe in the long run. There’s only ever now. People have shit lives because of bad ideas now; the long run doesn’t do them any good.

Well sure, the planet can be blown up & bad ideas can travel at speed of light. That unimpresses me because critique of bad ideas moves as fast & epidemics can be tackled before they are pandemics so that’s just a matter of mood.

But I won’t bore you with the argument. If I would have it completed, I’d write it in a book after convincing my wife & children to move to a smaller house and eat more fast food, that book would not only be published but create the global stir making a first-time combined award of Nobel prizes on litterature & peace quite inevitable. In turn this would be enabling me to move into a bigger house without having to take up a job again & so on …. quod non.

Just 2 serious things – my optimism can wait, the proto-argument is above:

– the question is whether truth can and does increase fitness of an idea – sure it does, just like the truth of an idea in science – the difference is that for instance religious ideas aren’t made up to stand a test but that doesn’t make a difference to the fact that they’ll be tested

– I also don’t believe in the long run, we have to attack the bad ideas now but it still is important in doing that, to know whether the idea is essential to a person or whether the person can remain without the idea – if the former it’s a bit like incurable easily transmittable diseases: quarantaine for the diseased, & let them die quietly

Cassanders, no, no, no, I don’t want to reduce conflict, and I don’t want to be assimilated, I don’t want to assimilate & I wish nobody’s assimilation. In fact if everybody is assimilated I will join the resistance against whatever they’re assimilated with.

Rose, ironic indeed, but we do agree on discussing this w.o. throwing things at each other so it’s not too bad ;-)

Both, I never said we should agree – or can agree – on everything: we can – but we shouldn’t. There really is only very little we need to agree on: the process to work out disagreements. The problems with agreeing on everything are twofold to be more precise: a. what to agree on if comprehensive & b. on full agreement we might as well drop the bomb as human life as we know it will have vanished.

Ophelia, I haven’t – Europe & urban US are clear cases of secularization. The sociology behind it isn’t my expertise but clearly people do decide that some comprehensive religious claims are not standing up to scrutiny. Contraception as a case in point is even clearer, no matter how absolute religious ‘leaders’ are on this point – more & more people are voting the issue taking them.

JoB – A good idea survives and a bad idea doesn’t, based on its “truth”? What is a meant by good, bad and truth in this context?

In science, when a hypothesis is made it can be tested, or least attempts can be made to test it, and if it can’t be falsified it will stand until something better comes along.

Ideas are somewhat similar. An idea may or may not be truthful, but if the idea is useful in allowing the idea to be propagated then it will survive. Our idea of what is a good or bad idea is irrelevant. “Good” ideas, and the ones whose adherents prosper through the adoption of those ideas, survive; and “bad” ideas, whose adherents end up being vanquished, one way or the other, die out.

A culture that enforces female fidelity through honour killings is without a doubt a bad idea. But that culture has survived for a long time and must be therefore a “good” idea in that it is helping that culture to endure. Can that culture survive against the alien culture it is now encountering on a greater scale than ever before? We’ll see.

I can dig a Darwinian treatment of idea evolution. But even in this treatment I am sure it is evident that truth – in a scientific sense – plays a role, & more so when rational discussion becomes the more important factor in the context.

That’s my optimism: rational discussion is a winner & because it is a winner it means that other ideas will really need to adapt to it.

True, this does not affect ‘untestable’ parts of ideas but the folk part of the religious ideas are not the core of the problem – although they are problematic because they reduce impact of reason.

Your example only ‘works’ (good is just a misnomer here) – or better ‘worked’-, because, at some point in time, reason was not of prime importance. That time will go as is evident from the clear & evident correlation of prosperity and a certain level of rational openness.

Eric, I’m not talking about violent repercussions or threats–those are always out of bounds, morally and legally (or ought to be). I’m talking about disapproval and criticism of your speech. You can’t protect yourself from people saying your speech was ill-advised by claiming “freedom of speech”–part of freedom of speech is the freedom to criticize bad speech.